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When did she "collaborate" with Farrell? Did Farrell coach her before she did Terpsichore with the Kirov? Anyhow, congratulations Ms. Part! This is exciting news.

He had pulled out of, if I'm not mistaken, all his conducting duties at the festival this year. I remember reading that he bought a home in Castleton because he loved the countryside, having first seen it when he got lost driving home from a concert. His home there, which was opened for tours the second year of the festival, is absolutely gorgeous. R.I.P.

Aren't those wonderful?! I was fortunate to hear Charlie play a few times, twice with Ornette. My wife, who can't stand 20 seconds of free jazz, is always getting me to play those CDs. And then there's that old-time country record he did with his daughters a few years back, hearkening back to childhood when his family had a daily radio show in Iowa. He had a lot of range, even in his jazz work, and also, it seems, a lot of heart. RIP.

A heads-up here that the Merce Cunningham Trust will livestream a performance of Cunningham's 1999 work Scenario tomorrow, Thursday, July 3, at 3:30 p.m. EST. Also, the July 6 performance of excerpts from Roaratorio is now online.

True, except that in Forsythe’s case Macaulay seems to be knocking not so much individual ballets but an entire aesthetic, and it's "influence" "on the other two works" on the program. dirac, I felt the same annoyance at Macaulay's self-dramatizing they're-going-to-kill-me-for-saying-this comments.

After writing these reviews, they just may see something besides Elo, Kylian and Forsythe being brought to town. Companies don’t lack for good work to choose from, whether it’s work new to them as a company, or just new to the dancers in the lead roles. Or new because it’s being revived and most of the audience hasn’t seen it. Sarasota Ballet is mining a particularly rich vein of work that is different in that way. I do feel bad for the Boston Ballet dancers (just as I felt bad for PNB and its hometown audience when Roméo et Juliette was poorly received in New York). Macaulay at least praised them in his second review, although the scarcity of specifics suggests his heart was hardly in it.

Perhaps Macaulay is unable to appreciate bad choreography. ;-) I haven't seen the works, and these descriptions from Boston Magazine may unfairly sensationalize it since they come without context, but they do seem to merit the Eurotrash label: As for Gottlieb, as you say he's pretty specific about what he doesn’t like. I think the John Martin analogy depends upon the judgment of history – will history really rank Elo and Forsythe with Balanchine?

From Macaulay's 8/15/13 review of Olivier Wevers' company, Whim W'Him:

Funny, she does get evening performances in D.C., and while that might be attributed to there being less competition because guest stars don't dance with the company there, I recall both a Swan Lake and a Bayadere on Saturday nights - the most coveted spot, I would think.

If he hated the ballets, the only positive thing to remark on would be the dancers, and their talents would be better shown in a better program. I'll be very surprised if he doesn't have at least some praise for them in his review of the second program.

pherank, I'm curious, why do you think it was a diatribe against him and not just his work? I applaud Macaulay for having the courage to call the work loathsome if that's what he thinks it is.

I don't know about in the rest of the country, but last season's HD broadcast will be on PBS here this Sunday afternoon. The Death of Klinghoffer is what I was most looking forward to as well.

Yes, and no doubt some of the HD subscribers were formerly among them, but can no longer handle the travel time, or afford the hotels.

I wonder how detailed to Met's data is. The shorter travel times (15 minutes instead of 8 hours for example) and the much lower prices (cheaper tickets and no need for a hotel room) are likely more of a factor in why elderly people go to HD broadcasts when they no longer go to the Met itself.

I read that as well. Apparently there is no sign that the break-in was related to the Klonghoffer controversy or the union negotiations.

I've been eager to read what The New Yorker's Alex Ross has to say about the "Klinghoffer" cancellation, and here it is: The Met’s “Klinghoffer” Problem. This is what I found most interesting:

David Vaughan, in his history "Merce Cunningham: 50 Years," describes the coat as

No I wasn’t referring to the daughters, who are not threatening violence. “False charges” was poor wording, sorry – “I just meant the anti-Semitic/pro-Palestinian state/what-have-you passions the opera will supposedly stir, leading to violence. Noting the upcoming HD broadcast of Die Meistersinger, Anthony Tommasini asks I don’t think we're combating intolerance by giving in to threats. Tommasini also writes that I think that’s one way to handle intolerance.

Thanks, Jack. By the way, for anyone interested, I will post when the Roaratorio excerpts Event of a couple of weeks ago goes online as promised.

No it’s not, but I don’t understand what Israel itself has to do with whether the K’s see the work as anti-Semitic. The daughters decried what they saw as"Rational(izing), legitim(izing), explain(ing)" terror against a Jew.” If the ADL had called the opera anti-Semitic, I wouldn’t have criticized them. What I criticized them for was taking the side of (the Klinghoffers), and giving in to (the people making, or effectively making, threats) people making a charge they acknowledge is false. Sexist? I don’t see anyone saying or implying “they’re just emotional because they’re women.” Men feel grief and grief-based anger as well. As to your larger point, yes, I understand that, and should have and meant to address it earlier. If threats of violence based on false charges are allowed to dictate behavior, where are we? For one thing, we’re encouraging more unwillingness to allow that another view, while wrong, has a right to be heard, and more Limbaugh-like demonization and caricaturization of other people’s views, more of the campus shutdowns of free speech that a number of commencement speakers took students to task for this spring, etc. I think the trend there is more misunderstanding begetting, sooner or later, more violence. So do I. I don’t think they should never support people whose views they don’t completely agree with. I think they were wrong to in this case, for reasons I’ve tried to explain. Far better then, in my opinion, to say “the opera is inaccurate and here’s why . . .” Although they don’t mean to do so, it’s almost as if they’re legitimizing political violence, saying in effect, “if people believe the opera’s version of things, it’s no wonder they’d resort to violence.” As a rights organization they were uniquely positioned to say to a large audience with an authority that would give it real rhetorical force – all the more so because they could say it while also stating their grievance with Adams and Goodman – that everyone’s exercising free speech is in everyone’s interest. They were in a position to lower the temperature of the debate, to promote real debate, leading to empathy and real understanding. Point taken about the daughters’ statement. As you can tell from above, I don’t think they have a tiny stage on this issue though. It may not make 30-minute-minus commercials network news broadcasts, but because it touches on hot button issues I imagine political people took note, and standing on principle when it was costly, as it probably would have been, would have garnered more publicity. I think that’s great. We've had a good debate. Unless I really have something new to say, I think I've said enough.

Oh that's very interesting to know, thanks.

Great! Thanks.

Here’s a wonderfully playful excerpt from Merce Cunningham's Antic Meet that I haven't seen anywhere else – the Sports and Diversions No. 2 section – with Cunningham and another male dancer I don’t recognize. This is not the section released on the ArtPix DVD.

Yes, thanks. I still haven't seen the L'Clerq documentary, though I have a copy on order. Is the Coppelia pas in the documentary?

"Rational(izing), legitim(izing), explain(ing)" terror against a Jew . . . that's anti-Semitic in my view (what other motive would someone have?), so characterizing a work of art as such seems tantamount to calling it anti-Semitic. But I dont want to put words in anyones mouth, and if the Klinghoffers dont use the term, OK, my mistake. Again, my issue is not with the Klinghoffers. * However, having written that, I find this statement by the Klinghoffers here: We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the cold-blooded murder of our father as the centrepiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic. Whether or not they would have objected to Adams attempt to humanize other terrorists, had these killed their father, is neither here nor there in my opinion. Given the tragedy theyve suffered, and given the emotions the opera must provoke, they cant be blamed for their opposition. They deserve and have my sympathy. But I think its very unfortunate that cooler heads didnt prevail at the ADL. I respect the Klinghoffers feelings, but I think the larger issue is encouraging vs. discouraging free expression, and the even larger issue is whether or not to stand with ones friends when theyre wrong, or stand with the people theyre wrong about. The ADL says the charge of anti-Semitism is wrong, but stands with the people who use the charge to stop the broadcast. The ADLs stated reason for opposing the broadcast is not that the work is anti-Semitic, but that it might incite anti-Semitism, a prejudice which like all tenaciously held prejudices depends upon a refusal to empathize and understand to humanize, which is what Adams said he wanted to do in the opera. I think humanizing vs. polarizing is the choice here, sympathizing with people as people while still condemning their acts, or saying that its wrong to sympathize with someone whos wronged you. Well, I believe that whats right is right and whats wrong is wrong whether you or I or the Met or the ADL and its members think it is or not. So I think the question here is whether or not standing up for people falsely accused is right. I think it is, and so I think the ADLs stance is sadly ironic. Also, while they've noted the Klinghoffers' view, to my knowledge they have not said they think the opera falsifies history, and given that theyve taken a stand against the works transmission, it would be strange if they thought it did and didnt say so. Foxman says he hasnt even seen it.